The Understanding Heart

Front matter

The Understanding Heart

By

Boston American Unitarian Association 1903

Methods of Teaching

The church and the school-house have always stood near one another. At one time the school-house stood under the shadow of the church. The whole process of education was controlled by ecclesiastical ideals. To-day the relative positions have been reversed.

The theory of the school has been enlarged, and its methods have been revolutionized. The church has, however, responded only slowly, and under compulsion, to the influences of the times. The result is that there is a strained relation between the two institutions which stand for the development of the complete man.

The young men and women who graduate from our schools find many of the doctrines of the church foreign to their thoughts. It is not that they actively deny them: it is rather that they seem to belong to a different world. The conclusions rest in the air, and have nothing corresponding to them in actual experience.

The same difficulty is experienced in attitude of the professed teachers of religion. The decrease in the number of candidates for the ministry in all our colleges is no accident. It is a part of the conflict between the present condition of the church and the existing state of secular education.

A young man with a spiritual nature and with a genuine ambition for human helpfulness goes to college with the intention of fitting himself for what he considers the most sacred calling in the world. It is a great ideal that inspires him. He wishes to give himself to the best possible work, and he is in no mood to tolerate the "second best."

In the college he meets men who are devoted to the disinterested search for truth. He becomes familiar with the habits of grave and severe study. He meets men whose callings require no apology, so obviously are they ministering to real needs. These men go from the college to the professional school with no break in their line of activity. It is all made of one piece. On the other hand, the student of theology seems to belong to a different order. His special studies seem to be remote and unrelated to the things he cares for. Above all, they do not seem to be carried on with that freedom and candor that he has learned to consider essential. The very term "free thought" as used in theological circles, sometimes as a term of reproach and sometimes defiantly as a party cry, seems strange to him. What other kind of thought can there be but free thought?

If he enters the ministerial profession, the same kind of questions await him. He is to teach religion; but what does that mean? Is there a body of definitely ascertained facts to be promulgated? If so, what is it? Or does spiritual culture, like physical culture, mean the development of certain powers in the individual?

The main difficulty lies not in doctrinal results, but in the methods by which any results are achieved. The church has not yet shaken itself free from the trammels of the old scholasticism. It is attempting to teach religion as nothing else is now taught in a good school.

What was the characteristic of scholasticism? We may say that it was concerned with the circumference of any subject rather than with its centre. Its chief emphasis lay in definition. Shakespeare described it in a sentence: "Define, define, well-educated infant."

To put a thought into words, and then to subject the words to minute examination, to distinguish one form of words from another, and to draw inferences which themselves depended solely on verbal definitions,—this was an exercise for nimble wits. The logical faculty grew abnormally acute; but there was little inquiry as to the correspondence between these words and the actual experience of mankind. It was as if the mind were independent of anything outside itself.

Sir Philip Sidney contrasts the method of the philosopher with that of the poet. The philosophers, he says, "go, casting largess as they go of definitions and distinctions," while the poet "beginneth not with obscure definitions, . . . but he cometh with a tale that holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner." These endless distinctions and definitions formed a part of what Milton called "the barbarous ignorance of the schools."

The very word "scholastic" recalls what the schools once were. But, when we go to the best schools, to-day, we find that the method is much nearer that of Sir Philip Sidney's poet than that of his formal philosopher. The teacher begins not with an abstract definition, but with the thing itself. The pupil is trained to observe, to compare, to appreciate. The whole subject is not forced upon him. He takes only so much as he is prepared for, and goes on from one partial view to another. The point is that it is a view, and not merely a hearsay report which is given him.

This change in the method of teaching corresponds to an advance in psychology. The old psychology treated the mind as if it were an object capable of exact definition. There was just so much of it, and it could be bounded as one might bound a country. The old English ballad, "My mind to me a kingdom is," expressed the idea literally.

Here is the child, the heir to a kingdom. That kingdom is his by divine right, but it must be surveyed and its boundaries fixed. The kingdom has its separate provinces. The different func- tions of the mind were spoken of as if they were absolutely definite things. There was department of the understanding, the province of the will, and so on: these were set down and distinguished and divided one from another.

The modern psychologist knows nothing of this formal kingdom. He is not even sure that any particular person is heir to it all. He is not very careful about the "spheres of influence" which are supposed to belong to any particular faculty. He is rather concerned with the states of consciousness, and these states of consciousness are always changing. When he comes to consider these states of consciousness, he sees that in every state of consciousness there is one focal point and there is an ill-defined margin. When he speaks of "the field of consciousness," he no longer speaks as if it were a field upon the earth that may be defined and fenced off: it is rather like the magnetic field. When he speaks of the coherence of ideas, he is no longer thinking of a fixed and inevitable relation. It is a relation which is dependent on the forces active at the moment. It is more like the coherer which belongs to Marconi's system of wireless telegraphy. The little bits of metal fillings are separate. Then from afar comes a mysterious influence, and the minute particles come together and form an electric circuit. Then they are shaken apart again, until with the new message they once more come together. So under successive impulses the mind is continually being rearranged. The centre of interest is all the time changing.

Modern education rests upon this vital conception of the dynamic character of the mind. The teacher does not think of a faculty called the understanding being at work while the affections are not enlisted and the imagination is dormant. Thinking is something different from that. The whole mind is centred upon one point. The more complete the concen- tration, the greater will be the accomplishment.

In the teaching of religion, a revolution is effected when we come to this idea that we are dealing primarily with states of consciousness and centres of interest. Religion is not a subject to be formally defined: it is a great experience into which we may enter. The dogmatist has his thought fixed upon the circumference, the outer edge of religion. He is jealous of all encroachments: he is always eager to defend the frontiers. He is ready to tell just what is the holy faith which it is necessary for every man to believe.

Catechetical instruction is based on this idea. It takes for granted that there is a precise and sufficient answer for every question. "What is God?" it asks, and the reply is couched in language that may satisfy the metaphysicians. The metes and bounds of the Divine Nature are fixed, and the limits of human responsibility are indicated. The last things are put first, and the abstract formula prepared before there is anything to put into it.

The child can be taught to repeat the answers correctly. The forms of thought may be accepted, and the tradition of the church may be handed down. But is this teaching religion? Does the child learn how to think seriously and freely upon the greatest subjects of human concern? Is not the effect rather to deaden the natural feeling of wonder and curiosity with which he might otherwise look out on the world? Premature ideas have been forced upon him, and his own ideas have not been allowed to ripen.

A true method of religious education begins with the things near at hand, and which already are of vital interest. The teacher takes advantage of the circumstances of the child's own life and of his natural relations to awaken interest in all higher things. It is taken for granted that he is already a worshipper. There is something to which he looks up with admiration. This "trick of looking up" is itself a religious experience. It is looking God-ward. One object after another is presented to his view. Each is a symbol only, but it is a symbol of the highest reality. The symbols become more spiritual, more profoundly ethical, as he grows toward maturity; but there is no break from the beginning of the process to the end. At no time does he arrive at a complete definition of God; and yet "himself from God he cannot free," and he is continually learning more and more in regard to his relations to Him.

The fixing of attention upon the centre rather than on the circumference relieves the teacher, also, of his chief embarrassment in dealing with mature minds. It is noteworthy that in the last generation the chief anxiety of the defenders of religious faith was in regard to the limits of human knowledge. Take that word "agnosticism" which was accepted as a denial of the possibility of religion. Agnosticism is simply the assertion of our ignorance upon certain points. We are all agnostics in regard to some questions. There are many things which we are willing to confess lie beyond our present knowledge, even, perhaps, beyond our powers of knowing. But what of it?

The man of science frankly confesses that he has no answer to many most important questions in regard to the physical world. But this does not paralyze his effort. His mind is intently fixed upon the things which he already knows, and upon those which immediately invite him. The unanswered or unanswerable questions are on the margin of his consciousness. They can wait.

Such a wholesome attitude must be that of the teacher of religion who adopts the same method. He, too, has his unanswered questions; but he, too, has his own work, and his work steadies him. He is not troubled by the thing which he does not know: he is too much interested in those discoveries in the spiritual life which have been made or which are immediately before him.

It is not necessary to "reconcile Science and Religion." The attempt to do so implies that one has a complete mastery of both. But one question after another, as it comes within the sphere of our real interests, may be treated with a scientific desire for truth, and with a desire to get from it its religious values. As we go on in this way, we find that they need no reconciliation, but are seen to belong to one great order.

In like manner the practical problems of the church are simplified when we approach them from the standpoint of the enlightened teacher. We hear complaints of the indifference of various classes in the community to religion. We hear complaints of the young people, of business men, of workingmen, and the rest. It is taken for granted that the need is for some sensational methods by which they may be startled into attention.

But is not the problem really an educational one? Here are great subjects in which many persons, we say, are not interested.

Why should they be interested in them? We are not surprised to learn that the average workingman is not interested in the latest discoveries in Babylonia or in the higher mathematics. They are remote from his affairs.

But he is interested in his own welfare, the welfare of his family and of his neighbors. He is capable of being profoundly stirred by a struggle through which he may be freed from unjust conditions. He has his ideals and his hopes. Here is a vital system of interests: the problem of the teacher of religion is to connect these with still larger and more vital interests. The man already has a sense of justice. Let the just thing he already recognizes be the means of gaining larger and still larger views. He already loves something and admires something. Here is the beginning of all true worship. Let it grow from more to more.

The changes that are taking place in all the relations of life demand a kind of religious education that shall fit men to recognize the spiritual possibilities of the new world. They must be able to deal with the complex as well as with the simple forms of goodness. The revolutionary forces must be used as well as those which are conservative, if any great thing is to be accomplished.

Mr. Benjamin Kidd, in his book on "Western Civilization," has a phrase which is illuminating. He says that the permanency of any power in the Western world is dependent on the degree of its "projected efficiency." In a finished civilization it might be enough to deal wisely with what had already been accomplished; but in a progressive civilization the important factor is not the past, but the immediate future. The ability to see what is impending, or even, when we cannot see, to grapple with it instinctively, is that which insures survival. The vital question is not, How correctly have we interpreted the past? but, How far have we projected ourselves into the future?

This is the task of the trained intelligence. It is prepared to make those successive readjustments which are necessary.

Christianity has more than once been threatened with extinction, and it has survived through its power of adaptation. At the time when the Roman civilization perished, it seemed that the Christian faith must fall with it. It was saved through the projected efficiency of certain missionaries who, in the forests of the north, were laboring with the future masters of the world. The Roman legions could not prevent the progress of the hosts of barbarians; but the barbarians themselves were converted.

We need an education that shall teach us to deal "justly, skilfully, and magnanimously," not only with the powers that be, but also with the powers that are to be. We must meet them more than halfway.

Who are to be the rulers of America in the next generation? Where are they living? What are they thinking? What are their dreams? The new multitudes pouring into our land, the struggle of workingmen, the changed conditions of social life,—all these are central to the teacher of religion.

There is the call for more thoughtfulness; but it is not to be an academic exercise, but a serious grappling with living issues. The result will be not a systematic body of divinity, but a clearer and more inspiring outlook upon the actual world.

Large elements in order brought, And tracts of calm from tempests made, And world-wide fluctuations swayed In vassal tides that follow thought."

The Sense of Values

One great difference between the modern school and the ordinary church lies in the temper with which questions of fact are approached. The teacher may be insufficiently prepared, but at least he is not afraid of his subject. He does not suspect it of any sinister designs against his peace of mind. There it is: his only business is to try to understand it.

On the other hand, one is conscious on entering the church of a certain attitude of suspicion. The fact may be dangerous: it may lead to unwelcome conclusions. Serious examination is discouraged as being only "destructive criticism."

The cause of this attitude is not far to seek. The teacher of religion finds himself in an ambiguous position because he has also allowed himself to be placed in the position of the advocate of a creed. He is to preserve the faith which was "once delivered to the saints." He feels that the sanctities of the past are in his keeping, and thinks, "beyond his sentry, beat the crystal walls in danger." A certain intellectual timidity is the inevitable result of this false attitude.

The first necessity in a sound religious training is such a discipline as will release the mind from all such timidity and teach a noble freedom. One must overcome the morbid fear of error if he would engage in a manly search for truth.

To do this, we must free ourselves from the superstition that in the great days of the past there were forces at work which are now exhausted. If that were so, then the problem of religion would be simply that of the preservation of a limited treasure. We are freed when we realize that there is more where these good things came from.

A timid piety sees the things which have already been accomplished, the results of the experiments of the past. It fears to lose them in some new experiment. It advises a parsimony of effort. The lessons it draws from experience are prudential. It is wise only in avoiding mistakes. It says: "Here is a place where God may be found. Here is a well-trodden path along which the saints have walked. As for the rest of the world, it is full of pitfalls: we know not whether it be God's world or not." There is here the courage of established convictions, but not the finer courage of fresh conviction.

Now behind that advice there is a lack of faith, and a false philosophy. A man sees the good that is already, here and there, produced through human effort. He believes in the result; but he has not learned, as yet, that larger faith in the ceaseless effort which has produced that result, and he has not yet learned that deep confidence that finds in this universe an inexhaustible supply of spiritual power. It is true that there is not a single religion that has not some truth in it, not one but has said to self-weary men, "Ye must be born again," not one but has in some way quickened the soul, in some way given access to the infinite. That is true, if indeed there be an infinite world; that is true, if indeed there be a God behind all we see. We cannot help but touch Him. We cannot help finding Him in some way when we earnestly seek. That justifies the struggle of the past, but it also justifies the new struggle of the present. It justifies the man who is willing to make his life a sublime adventure, the man who is willing to take a step that to his knowledge, at least, has never been taken before. He also is in God's world. He also shall find something, even though it be not altogether that which he has dreamed of at the beginning.

The world goes on not because there is an exact correspondence between a certain definite body of good and a definite number of those who seek for good, because every aim is reached, because every life puts forth its strength wisely and prudently: the world goes on because the seeds of life are everywhere sown broadcast, because out of multitudes of failures here and there is a supreme achievement. "Thou canst not know which will perish, this or that." What each one of us can know is, that the world goes on, our lives go on, because in human hearts there is an infinitude answering to the infinitude that is without us,—the infinitude of courage, of love, of desire. The one thing which we ask for in each new generation is not wisdom, but the courage and strength out of which alone wisdom comes.

Among the gulches of our Western mountains one may still see the placer miner at his work in his wasteful, crude way, extracting the gold from the gravel of the streams; and all day long he stands by the sluice, shovelling in the gravel and seeing it washed away by the water. All day he is engaged in that apparently useless work, not selecting, but laboring on stolidly, continuously. Only after the day's work, perhaps after several days' work, does he see what he has done. Then he examines the riffles over which the water and the gravel have been flowing, and there he finds a few grains of gold which reward his labor, selected not by his own personal care, but by that very force to which he intrusts it.

That is the only way any man can work, working with a certain carelessness of effort, but working on because he intrusts what he does to some great constant power which is all the time selecting the thing that is good and finding in that good something permanent, while the rest goes for naught. A man has not yet learned to live in the world who has not learned to trust some such selective power, to look on without regret while much that for the moment seemed of worth becomes a thing of naught and is forgotten. Then, when the day's work is over, that which is worth preserving is preserved. He trusts himself to the eternal power with which he works. And it is altogether false and misleading when yesterday's sifted gold is compared with the gravel of to-day, yesterday's achievement with the imperfectness of to-day's effort.

The only thing, after all, that we learn from experience, the only thing that we can hand down at last to those who come after, is the sense of value. We tell our children it is only the gold that makes the labor worth while, that it is only the excellent thing that is permanent, and we can make them seek that excellent thing and find their satisfaction in it. This sense of values, intellectual and spiritual, which we acquire, comes from the working of laws that are beyond our will. We speak of certain events which are memorable, that stand out for- ever in human history and, indeed, make all the history that we remember. They were not necessarily the things most striking at the time,—these things that are memorable. We forget the sordidness, the futility, the absurdities of the time, the little men who in their own generation passed for great. These men pass into oblivion. They did nothing which the next generation can remember. Here and there names abide, becoming more great, looming in more heroic proportions as the ages pass. They are the names which the world cannot forget,—cannot forget because they are linked eternally with great ideals and aspirations. They become a vital part of the heritage of mankind, not because some past day was holier than this or some other age really braver than this, but only because the brave men and brave deeds are remembered, and the time-servers are forgotten.

We say that it takes time for causes and tendencies to become clear, so that we can see the great moral principle behind them, that we in our day are confused, we have no clear compelling motive, no call for manliness and for sacrifices. Was there ever a time when it was not so? Was there ever a time when common men were not tempted to think that gain is godliness, ever a time when the pettiness of the day did not tend to hide the clear shining of eternal truth? But at all times there were some who did remain loyal, loyal to their own ideals. There were always some who chose the unpopular cause because it seemed to them true. And then the days pass, the transitory things fade away, and these causes and these souls that had been in "the way everlasting" stand out clear and strong as wisdom is justified of her children.

If we could but see this simple law of nature, if we could but believe in that eternal justice through which that which is real abides and that which is the nature of pretence vanishes, our lives would be simplified. Then should we look at the new question not as something that disturbs the old order, but as a part of that order. Always the souls that have sought God have found him according to the measure of their seeking. Always through the earnest desire has come such achievement as the world has known. The question of old and new, of the tried and the untried, does not enter in. Every loyal obedience to the inner call of duty, every attempt at speaking bravely the thing that is within one's own heart, every attempt to utter kindness and good will, brings us into connection with the whole history of the upward movement of the world. So have good men and women been doing from the beginning, and all our heritage is but the result of their effort. If to us there comes the need of meeting a new situation, speaking in the new accent, making for the time a new emphasis, we are simply following out that universal law through which the world grows more and more, though men die and fail. A new commandment speaks to us. When we obey it, we find that it is the old commandment which we have heard from the beginning.

One who thus faces life has no fear of putting forth to the full all the power that is in him. The great mistake of the world has never come through too much effort, through too great ideals. The world takes care of itself. The world cannot be moved by mere wilfulness; and that which belongs to our wilfulness, to our mistakes, we may leave to that kindly oblivion which covers all such things in the end. These are the things which are to come to naught and all the love of truth, of the sincere desire, all the generous ardor mingled with them,—all these things remain because they are of God.

Symbols

In both the school and the church a great part of the teaching is by use of symbols. The real subjects are too vast and complex to be directly presented, so that representative forms are used instead. The real earth cannot be brought into the school-room, but its shape can be shown by the little globe. The "object-lesson" is indispensable.

In like manner the great truths of religion are so involved in the whole of human life that they cannot, in their entirety, be brought within the limits of the church. Only certain aspects of them can be exhibited, and that through some symbolical representation. Symbolism is not an invention of priests: it is rather an educational device. It has a psychological justification. Thought and feeling must be helped by concrete examples, and the example must lend itself to the teacher's purpose. The form and the spirit must be united if a permanent impression is to be made.

When one for the first time goes into a Catholic church at high mass, he may be readily excused if he looks upon the whole ceremony as mere mummery. The unknown language, the phrases repeated again and again and as though they had some magic efficacy, the genuflections of the priest and the people, seem meaningless to one who has been accustomed to a simpler form of worship. Yet, though these ceremonies may be meaningless to the unprepared spectator, it does not follow that they are meaningless to those accustomed to them. To the worshipper there these are not dead, empty forms. They are full of spiritual passion. The worshipper seems to stand before the central scene in the world's history.

He stands again looking at the scene on Calvary, he sees the "Lamb of God" still "taking away the sins of the world." To call all this mummery is only a confession of our own ignorance and lack of imagination. It indicates the same state of mind that would make one call a foreign language mere jargon. Before we criticise the thing, we must try to understand it. Because we find no meaning in it, there is no reason that we should say that there is no meaning there.

Now, when we see an elaborate ritual like this, we perceive clearly that all these actions and words are symbolic. The words and scenes are nothing in themselves, they do not profess to be anything in themselves; but they stand for and represent something which is believed to be true. Here is a kind of language which is supposed to be understood by the people: the church is here speaking to her children in parables. Through the gate-ways of the senses and the imagina- tion, she is seeking to enter their inmost souls. These outward things are not the grace which is beyond price: they are only the means of grace,—not the fountains of religion, but the well worn channels of religious emotion. And so the Church makes use of every possible means for bringing her thought and her holy passion to bear upon the heart and upon the conscience. Architecture, music, motion, speech, color, are used in turn and are subordinated to one purpose, which is to arouse and direct thought and feeling in regard to religion.